ST. PAUL, Minn. — When the Saint Mary's University fastpitch softball team took the field Saturday afternoon, the Cardinals had not played since closing out its 11-game spring trip with a 7-3 win over Houghton on March 5.
 
Fortunately for coach John Tschida, the nearly month-long layoff had no ill effects on the Cardinals' high-octane offense.
 
Saint Mary's kicked off Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference play on Saturday in much the same fashion they ended their spring trip — victorious.
 
Fueled by a five-run fourth inning — highlighted by a bases-clearing triple off the bat of Allison Ciero (Glen Ellyn, Ill.) — Saint Mary's cruised to a 10-7 victory over St. Catherine in the opening game of their conference doubleheader.
 
Unfortunately, the Cardinals could have used a few of those Game 1 runs in the nightcap, as the Wildcats limited SMU to just one run on five hits in beating Saint Mary's 9-1 to land a split in the conference twinbill, held at the University of Northwestern's Reynolds Field.


The Cardinals grabbed the early lead in the opener, scoring twice in first inning on three "hits" — back-to-back hit batters to open the frame, and a two-out, two-run single by Cassie Sutor (Chicago, Ill.) — only to have the Wildcats answer with a pair of two-out runs of their own in the bottom of the first to knot the game at 2-2 after each teams' first at-bat.
 
Saint Mary's regained the lead, 3-2, in the third, getting a lead-off single by Riley Hall (Dallas Center, Iowa) and a run-scoring double by Sophie Cave (Maplewood, Minn.).
 
And by the time the Cardinals were done batting in the fourth, that lead had ballooned to 8-2.
 
Sarah Kraus (Onalaska, Wis.) and Amy Kulaga (Riverside, Ill.) laced back-to-back one-out singles, and pinch-hitter Heather Nordlund (Byron, Minn.) followed with a walk to load the bases for Ciero — who promptly blistered a bases-clearing triple for SMU's first three runs of the inning. Hall followed with a double to score Ciero, and, one out later, Erin Sullivan (Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.) plated Hall with an RBI single to cap the Cardinals' five-run fourth and give Saint Mary's a commanding 8-2 advantage.
 
After giving a run back on a solo home run by SCU's Kaitlin Boyles in the bottom of the fifth, Saint Mary's took advantage of a pair of Wildcat errors — and Cave's second RBI double of the game by Cave — to score twice in the sixth for a 10-3 lead.
 
Then things got interesting, as St. Catherine strung together five consecutive one-out singles, scoring four times in the bottom of the sixth to whittle SMU's seven-run lead to three, 10-7.
 
That would be as close as SCU would get, however, as the Cardinals wiggled out of a two-on, two-out jam in the bottom of the seventh to seal their sixth straight win.
 
Hall and Cave each collected two hits, while Hall also scored three times and Ciero drove in a team-leading three runs. Kraus picked up the pitching win, allowing three runs on six hits in 4 2/3 innings. Amelia Spilde (Brooklyn, Wis.) surrendered four runs on five hits in 1 1/3 innings of relief, and Ally Wagner (Altoona, Wis.) recorded the save with a scoreless seventh.
 
The Wildcats took control early in the nightcap, scoring twice in the bottom of the first — and SCU would not relinquish the lead.
 
St. Catherine tacked on three more runs in the third, before Saint Mary's finally struck in the fifth, when Wagner launched a Montero offering over the fence for her first collegiate home run.
 
The Wildcats, however, answered with a pair of runs in the bottom of the fifth to make it 7-1, and added two more in the sixth to seal the victory.
 
Cave put together her second straight two-hit game, while Wagner, Ciero, and Mackenzie Carey (Prescott, Wis.) accounted for SMU's other three hits.
 
The Cardinals (1-1 MIAC, 8-5 overall) are right back in action on Sunday, kicking off the home portion of their 2022 schedule with a 1 p.m. MIAC doubleheader against Concordia.
 
 
 
  Read Full Article